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Syphilis is one of those diseases that everyone used to be scared of. It can be deadly if not cured properly and is extremely contagious.

The interesting thing about this disease is that even though it is extremely annoying and can lead to death, if treated early is very easy to cure. The problem is that it’s hard to spot it at first as it’s almost asymptomatic. No itching, no rashes (until later stages), no swelling, no nothing.

So, how do you spot it?

First of all, it is very important to know that syphilis is only transmitted through sexual contact. You can’t get it from sharing food, a fork or clothes with someone who has it, so the best way to prevent it is through having a proper sex life. If your partner does not have syphilis, you won’t get it.

If you do have incidental sex, just go see a doctor and he’ll take care of the problem for you, but on with the spotting.

As I mentioned before, syphilis does not cause any discomfort at all in its early stages. Although you might see some lesions on the areas of contact (penis or vagina), they tend to heal spontaneously which is why people don’t go see a doctor at this stage. In the second stage of syphilis, you’ll be able to notice rashes on your feet or your hands. You may see the rash on the torso or your face.

In the last stage of syphilis you may see knots forming in the joints which look like big bumps under your skin.

Although we have talked a bit about prevention already, I would like to talk about the one thing that prevents Syphilis from spreading and even cures it completely.

That one thing, oddly enough is penicillin G also known as Benzylpenicillin. This medication is fairly common and really easy to administer, but it only works if you apply it in a very easy stage of the disease. Oftentimes, one dose is enough.

It really amazed me when I realized that such a simple drug can take care of this huge problem.

In this article we talked about what Syphilis looks like and how to prevent it. Generally speaking, if you go see a doctor early enough, you should not have a problem with it as it’s not hard to treat.
Moreover as long as you pay attention who you sleep with, you should be fine as well. Having a permanent sexual partner (like your husband or wife) is a tremendous prevention tool for syphilis.

Again, I hope that this article was helpful to you. Remember that although this disease is pretty nasty, due to the fact that medicine has advanced so much, it’s perfectly curable.

Imagine this: you wake up one morning and you feel you’re going to die because your big toe is just killing you. You’re thinking to yourself, “what’s going on!” and uncover your foot quickly. You see a huge bump on your toe that’s so painful you can’t put anything on it – not even your sheets.

Sounds scarry? Let me tell you… it is.

That’s what people go through when they have a gout attack.

Before we talk about how to treat it, let’s quickly go over what does gout look like. There are fortunately many images you can find by doing a quick search over at Google, but let me explain this as well as I can.

Gout causes enormous swelling in the joints. You can literally see a huge, swollen, red bump around the joint that’s infected by it. It usually occurs during your morning hours in the foot area, but it’s not uncommon to have gout on your hands, fingers and other joints.

The swollen area is extremely tender and you absolutely can’t put any pressure on it at all because it hurts so bad.

Why does gout even happen?
See, everyone has a certain type of acid in their body. It’s called uric acid and usually you can’t even feel it’s there. Unfortunately, sometimes people have problems processing that acid in their body and it starts to build up in the joints. That’s how gout gets developed.

How to treat gout?
There are a few things you can do to stop uric acid from building up and thus stop the pain:

1. You need to drink lots of water. Obviously, you want to clear out your system and get rid of all the harmful substances that cause the pain. That’s why you should drink at least four glasses of water with each one of your meals.

2. Change your diet. This is also very important. You probably don’t know that eating lots of protein will cause the acid we talked about above to build up, and when it does… Just try to limit the amount of protein you take in.

4. Try to lose weight. This might seem a little unrelated, but losing weight if you are overweight helps to regulate your system a little better which will result in you having a more balanced chemistry in your body.

Gout is a pain. Literally. You should do everything you can to not only be able to spot it early, but also to take care of it. Again, my hope is that you take these tips to heart and put them into action.